Google announced today that they're updating their search algorithms to account for sites that get a lot of copyright removal notices, moving them further down the list of results.

In an effort to move users toward more legitimate content—like Hulu, Spotify, and others—Google is now joining the anti-piracy brigade with a new algorithm. Starting next week, Google will count the number of valid copyright removal notices they receive for a site, and move that site down in the rankings if it receives a high count. Google says they'll continue to be transparent about what sites have been issued removal notices. It's unclear exactly how this will play out, but one possible (and problematic) scenario: we may start to see a lot less of BitTorrent and file sharing sites on Google, even when we're searching for something legitimate. Hit the link to read more.